IJ - Guidance and Counseling Program

File: IJ

GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING PROGRAM

Each school
will provide the following guidance and counseling services to all students:

•academic
guidance which assists students and their parents to acquire knowledge of the
curricula choices available to students, to plan a program of studies, to
arrange and interpret academic testing, and to seek post-secondary academic
opportunities.

•career
guidance which helps students to acquire information and plan action about
work, jobs, apprenticeships, and post-secondary educational and career
opportunities.

•personal/social
counseling which assists a student to develop an understanding of themselves,
the rights and needs of others, how to resolve conflict and to define
individual goals, reflecting their interests, abilities and aptitudes.
Information and records of personal/social counseling will be kept confidential
and separate from a student's educational records and not disclosed to third
parties without prior parental consent or as otherwise provided by law. Parents may elect, by notifying their child’s
school in writing, to have their child not participate in personal/social
counseling.

•employment
counseling and placement services which furnish information relating to the
employment opportunities available to students graduating from or leaving the
public schools. Such information will be provided to secondary students and
will include all types of employment opportunities, including, but not limited
to, apprenticeships, the military, career education schools, and the teaching
profession.In providing such services,
the school board will consult and cooperate with the Virginia Employment
Commission, the Department of Labor and Industry, local business and labor
organizations, and career schools.

No student
will be required to participate in any counseling program to which the
student's parents object.

The
guidance and counseling program will not include the use of counseling
techniques which are beyond the scope of the professional certification or
training of counselors, including hypnosis, or other psychotherapeutic
techniques that are normally employed in medical or clinical settings and focus
on mental illness or psychopathology.

Parents
will be notified annually about the counseling programs which are available to
their children. The notification will include the purpose and general
description of the programs, information regarding ways parents may review
materials to be used in guidance and counseling programs at their child's
school and information about the procedures by which parents may limit their
child's participation in such programs.